U.S. and Hong Kong (2003)

State Department Noon Briefing, July 18, 2003

Following is the State Department transcript:

(begin transcript)

U.S. Department of State
Daily Press Briefing Index
Friday, July 18, 2003
12:45 p.m. EDT

BRIEFER: Richard Boucher, Spokesman

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

CHINA
-- Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo Meetings With U.S. Officials
-- Discussions Regarding Protests of Article 23
-- Withdrawing Funding From UNFPA

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING

FRIDAY, JULY 18, 2003
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)

12:45 p.m. EDT

MR. BOUCHER: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I don't have any statements or announcements, so I'd be glad to take your questions.

QUESTION: Well, I realize that the meeting hasn't actually begun yet, but --

QUESTION: How about a readout?

QUESTION: Yeah. Can you tell us exactly what you and the Chinese are going to decide later this afternoon when you're in the meeting?

MR. BOUCHER: No.

QUESTION: Well, can you tell --

MR. BOUCHER: It hasn't happened yet, as you point out.

Before we start down the road of what you and the Chinese are going to decide later, we've been working very closely with the Chinese. This is an ongoing process of working with the Chinese. They've been putting a lot of effort into achieving a goal that's important to them and important to us; that's to use multilateral talks as a peaceful means to denuclearized the peninsula.

So the Chinese have worked very hard to get the multilateral talks going in order to achieve that goal, and we appreciate that, and so we've been working closely with them. That doesn't mean that there will be a particular decision at a particular meeting today. This is an ongoing process of trying to get this thing organized in a way that meets the needs of actually solving the issue.

So we'll have, I think, important discussions, serious discussions this afternoon with the Chinese. We'll hear from them about meetings that Vice Foreign Minister Dai had in Pyongyang, and I'm sure they'll continue to work the issue.

QUESTION: Okay. Are you able at this point to say -- and again, I know you don't speak for other buildings, but who else is he -- this seems to be like a big secret for some reason.

MR. BOUCHER: Who else is he seeing?

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. BOUCHER: I've got a fairly long list of people. Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo will be meeting today with the Secretary at 4:00 p.m. That's on the schedule. He'll be meeting with the Deputy Secretary. He'll see National Security Advisor Rice.

He is accompanied on his visit to Washington by other Chinese Foreign Ministry officials, including He Yafei, the Director General for North American Affairs, and Madame Fu Ying, the Director General for Asian Affairs. And so we'll all be talking to them this afternoon about how to achieve the complete, irreversible and verifiable termination of the North's nuclear program.

QUESTION: Just one more thing. Yesterday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said quite specifically that it believed the Agreed Framework should be resurrected, as it were. Is this something that you would be open to? I know that you said it was the North Koreans who breached it, or whatever -- I can't remember the exact language you used.

MR. BOUCHER: They declared it --

QUESTION: -- void or --

MR. BOUCHER: Was it null and void, defunct, dead?

QUESTION: Anyway, is that something that you would consider?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know that that's actually a live issue at this point. The North Koreans said, I think, it was effectively nullified, if I remember correctly. But in any case, the North Koreans were the ones that violated it. They were the ones that breached it. They were the ones who, after agreeing not to develop nuclear weapons programs, went off and started a different program to enrich uranium.

The Secretary has said if we're going to resolve this in the manner that we want, that the Chinese want, that the international community wants, and that's an irreversible and verifiable end to the nuclear weapons program, that there are going to have to be different arrangements in the future.

QUESTION: Richard, do you know at what time -- do you know whether the Vice Foreign Minister is meeting Dr. Rice after --

MR. BOUCHER: I think it's before. I think it's earlier in the afternoon.

QUESTION: So is it likely, then, that you guys will find a way to read out, to the extent you can, the Secretary's meeting?

MR. BOUCHER: We'll try to find a way to tell you what happens, as much as we can, yeah.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: Going back to the Chinese leaders visiting the State Department, do you think Saturday is going to discuss also about the cry for democracy in Hong Kong and hundreds of thousands of demonstrators there asking for democracy? And also, Beijing is wanting them not to repeat the 1989 Tiananmen Square.

MR. BOUCHER: First of all, we have expressed ourselves on the situation in Hong Kong with regard to Article 23 and, more importantly, our overall support for movement towards more democracy -- towards democracy in Hong Kong. So I think we've been very clear on that.

Whether there's a chance for this to come up during the course of the meetings today, I don't know. It will depend on the time and how many topics they want to cover. There is obviously a principal topic is the North Korea situation, and Vice Foreign Minister Dai himself has been most involved in that situation.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: I have three questions. I will ask them one by one.

MR. BOUCHER: Okay. (Laughter.) That's at least more honest than saying I have a follow-up. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Okay, first is Charles Lee.

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah.

QUESTION: This morning we got some -- I got a phone call actually from his fiancee in the States. And I just want to confirm with you what was your news update on his case.

MR. BOUCHER: Okay. A U.S. Consular Officer spoke by telephone on July 16th with Chuck Lee. He's the American citizen who's imprisoned in China on charges pertaining to the attempted sabotage of broadcast equipment. This was the eighth conversation with Mr. Lee within the past ten weeks, either by telephone or in person.

Mr. Lee complained of mistreatment on the part of prison authorities. He also reported being forced to attend anti-Falun Gong group study sessions.

We have protested his treatment to appropriate prison authorities. At Mr. Lee's request, the United States Embassy and the Consul General in Shanghai have also raised Mr. Lee's case with senior officials at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with Jiangsu provincial authorities on several occasions, both formally and informally.

And the U.S. Embassy and the Consulate General in Shanghai will continue to monitor his case closely and raise issues related to his imprisonment and to his health with appropriate Chinese officials.

QUESTION: With regard to his right now hunger strike, are there in protest of this kind of mistreatment? And they also confiscated all his letter written to the U.S. Consulate officials in Shanghai.

MR. BOUCHER: I don't have any -- I don't know those details one way or the other, whether they're true or not. I can't confirm them.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. BOUCHER: I just don't have that information. But we certainly have been in touch with him directly over the telephone, as well as sometimes in person.

QUESTION: Tomorrow -- actually, by the end of tomorrow -- the persecution of Falun Gong will enter its fifth year. Given this massive scale of persecution to this many people, actually lots of resources were consumed or were used, spent, in this massive persecution. Since the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister is in town, do you think the State Department would bring up this issue and tell the Chinese that given this --

MR. BOUCHER: There are always many issues on the U.S.-China agenda, and this is an issue that has been important to us that we have been raising with the Embassy and the Consulate General have been raising in China. We just talked a few moments ago some other issues that are of concern to us.

The talks today are principally about North Korea. That's the purpose of the visit. That's what we're working here in these particular discussions. So I don't know whether any of these other issues, whether it will be possible to address them, but they are issues that we address on a regular basis with Chinese authorities.

QUESTION: Okay, the third question is we heard that actually every delegation from China will bring up this Falun Gong issue and is particularly with regard to the lawsuit, the genocide lawsuit filed by Falun Gong people here in the United States against the former Chinese president. Well, if you're asked this question, will the State Department respond in any way?

MR. BOUCHER: Yes.

QUESTION: In what way?

MR. BOUCHER: Let me check and get you the actual -- the kind of response we use on that. It's a legal matter. I think in most cases we leave it to the courts.

Okay, sir.

QUESTION: You mentioned something about Mr. Lee's health. Do you have any reason to believe that he is in ill health?

MR. BOUCHER: Well, as I said, he has complained of mistreatment. I know there have been these reports that he's on a hunger strike, so his health has been a matter of concern to us.

Okay, let's proceed back.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: The North Korean talk comment. There is report from South Korean Government of Zhejiang that North is demanding China to exclude Japan at this time because of their, what they call the colonialization before --

MR. BOUCHER: You'd have to ask the North Koreans what their position is. Our position is that Japan and North -- and South Korea should be included in the discussion.

QUESTION: Yes, sir. Yesterday you said it's important to move to a five-way talk at this time.

MR. BOUCHER: It still is today.

QUESTION: And you did not rule out the three way talks. What about four-way talks? It's out of the question?

(Laughter.)

MR. BOUCHER: As I think we've said before, we have not seen any proposals for four-way talks, but we do think it's important to move to five-party talks, that Japan and South Korea have a role. That's what we're pressing for. That's what we want to see.

QUESTION: Does U.S. oppose to four-way talk?

MR. BOUCHER: We are pushing for five-party talks. We've not -- there's not a proposal to be for or against on four-party talks as far as I know.

QUESTION: Mr. Boucher.

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah.

QUESTION: Just for a (inaudible).

MR. BOUCHER: Okay.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) particularly any necessity to hold our, I know it's a TCOG meeting in the next week or near future?

MR. BOUCHER: I'm not -- I checked. There's nothing scheduled at this time. I'm sure it will continue to consult very closely with the Japanese and South Korean Governments. I think they have also been in direct contact with the Chinese about where the Chinese --in what the Chinese heard in North Korea, so there's a lot of consultation going on between the different people it has involved, and we'll continue to consult very closely with Japan and South Korea.

Yeah. Okay.

Over here. Sir.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: This question is about UNFPA and I'm kind of asking, see if you had anything on why, again, this year the State Department authorization is holding up funding for FPA. Is it for the same reasons as last year in terms of the -- of money going to China, which supports --

MR. BOUCHER: I think there's two things that are going on. One of the progress of the legislation on the Hill. There are a number of concerns we've had about the House bill that's working its way through -- the State Department authorization bill that was working its way through the House on the UN Population Fund. We strongly oppose Section 116(e), which earmarked $50 million of unrequested funding for the UNFPA in fiscal years -- in each of fiscal years 2004 and 2005. We were pleased and encouraged when the earmark that had been added during committee markup was deleted on the House floor by the Smith Amendment, the Smith Amendment on UNFPA makes the bill language consistent with the administration's family planning policy.

As you know, the Kemp-Kasten Amendment has specifically precluded U.S. funding of UNFPA under certain circumstance, and last year we made a determination that their assistance to China supported birth limitation programs that are coercive, and so those conditions still apply.

QUESTION: And you're making efforts to see if you can give -- this year to give the money to UNFPA but make sure the U.S. -- none of U.S. funding goes directly to China?

MR. BOUCHER: As I said, we think that this amendment withdrawing the funding was consistent with our policy.

We have made clear right from the start of this administration that we would continue to support population and health programs as much as we have in the past, that money that was not spent in one way could be spent in other ways. And I believe that was the case last year with this money that was not spent through UNFPA, and I would expect that to be the case in the future as well.

Matt.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

QUESTION: Falun Gong hate crime. Next Monday it will be -- next Monday there will be a congressional briefing on recent assault -- attack against some Falun Gong practitioners in New York when they were having a peaceful demonstration, and the attacker is believed -- is China -- Chinese community leader who has been able to have direct relation or connection with Chinese Embassy. And also, that incident in terms of time and location coincides with the welfare dinner of the Chinese Permanent Ambassador to UN.

Are you aware of this incident, and what's your --

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know if that incident has been reported to us, but I think, as you said, it's a matter being handled by local law enforcement.

Thank you.

MR. BOUCHER: We've got one more down here?

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

(The briefing was concluded at 1:35 p.m.)

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